Ancient DNA Holds Clues to Climate Change Adaptation

ScienceDaily (Jan. 31, 2012) — Thirty-thousand-year-old bison bones discovered in permafrost at a Canadian goldmine are helping scientists unravel the mystery about how animals adapt to rapid environmental change.

The bones play a key role in a world-first study, led by University of Adelaide researchers, which analyses special genetic modifications that turn genes on and off, without altering the DNA sequence itself. These 'epigenetic' changes can occur rapidly between generations -- without requiring the time for standard evolutionary processes.

Such epigenetic modifications could explain how animal species are able to respond to rapid climate change.

In a collaboration between the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD) and Sydney's Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute, researchers have shown that it is possible to accurately measure epigenetic modifications in extinct animals and populations.

Read more:  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/01/120131102519.htm

A Vast Canadian Wilderness Poised for a Uranium Boom

Canada’s Nunavut Territory is the largest undisturbed wilderness in the Northern Hemisphere. It also contains large deposits of uranium, generating intense interest from mining companies and raising concerns that a mining boom could harm the caribou at the center of Inuit life.

by ed struzik

Until her semi-nomadic family moved into the tiny Inuit community of Baker Lake in the 1950s, Joan Scottie never knew there was a wider world beyond her own on the tundra of the Nunavut Territory in the Canadian Arctic. She didn’t see the inside of a school until she was a teenager and didn’t venture south until she was an adult.

But that all changed in 1978, when a Soviet satellite carrying 100 pounds of enriched uranium for an onboard nuclear reactor crashed into the middle of the wilderness she knew so well, resulting in a military search that recovered some of the radioactive debris. Everything that Scottie learned about uranium after that convinced her she wanted nothing to do with a mineral that had the potential to cause such serious health problems or be used for military purposes.

So when a German mining company showed up at Baker Lake ten years later with a plan to extract uranium from an area that included a key caribou calving ground, Scottie and her Inuit neighbors weighed theenvironmental implications against the economic advantages and voted emphatically to say “No.” The German company eventually dropped its plans.

Now, however, the Inuit grandmother of two finds herself once again on the front lines of a grassroots movement trying to block several new companies from mining uranium from the same lodes near Baker Lake. And this time the playing field has changed.

The Canadian government has made it clear that Arctic mining will be one of the cornerstones of the country’s economic future. It is encouraging mining companies to exploit the deposits of gold, silver, zinc, diamonds, uranium and other minerals and metals found in abundance in the vast areas of the enormous Nunavut Territory, as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

In spite of the global recession of 2008 and the March 2011 meltdown at Japan’s Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, which caused some countries to reconsider nuclear power, uranium exploration is proceeding at a record pace in this part of the world. In Scottie’s backyard, the French mining giant, Areva — partnering with JCU Exploration of Canada and the DAEWOO Corporation of Korea — is actively exploring a major uranium lode at Kiggavik, the site of the former planned German mine, 50 miles west of Baker Lake. Other companies also are considering building mines in the surrounding tundra. In the territory of Nunavut alone, more than $322 million was spent on uranium exploration in 2011, up from $189 million in 2009.

Continued: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/a_vast_canadian_wilderness_poised_for_a_uranium_boom/2489/

Weird Noise: Strange Sounds Popping Up In Different Parts Of Canada

Two bizarre — yet oddly similar — videos of howling have been recorded in separate parts of Canada, capturing the imagination of YouTube viewers and skeptics alike.

The first video, posted on Jan. 13, reportedly recorded strange sounds in a forest in Conklin, Alta., a remote community northeast of Edmonton. The unidentified noise – which sounds like it came straight from the soundtrack of a horror movie – has racked up more than 500,000 views and dozens of comments, many of which question its authenticity. 

Another video surfaced just a few days later on Jan. 15, with similar sounds apparently recorded in The Pas, Manitoba, more than 1,000 kilometres away. 

Coincidence? We may need Mulder and Scully to investigate.

“Sounds like a good start to a death metal song...” said one user about the first video.

“Aliens obviously,” another viewer wrote.

Read more and watch videos at:  http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/01/16/weird-noise-strange-sound_n_1208717.html

UPDATE: The strange sounds phenomenon continues to spread, with videos popping up from Canada and around the world featuring similar noises. The weird sounds have allegedly been recorded in a number of cities, including Winnipeg, Chicago and Glasgow. While many viewers are intrigued, others are equally skeptical about the strange sounds. Is this the latest Internet meme?

The Huffington Post Canada first spotted a video recorded in an Alberta forest featuring bizarre sounds on Jan. 16. The video – which was originally uploaded on Jan. 13 – has already received more than 1.2 million views. A user created a video earlier this week that compiled a bunch of posts, including the video from Conklin, Atla.

'Dramatic' loss of harp seals amid warming: study

WASHINGTON — Harp seal pups off the coast of eastern Canada are dying at alarming rates due to a loss of winter ice cover, according to US scientists who questioned on Wednesday if the population will be able to recover.

The study by researchers at Duke University shows that seasonal ice cover in the harp seal breeding regions of the North Atlantic Ocean has declined about six percent per decade since 1979, when satellite data began.

The result has been entire generations of newly born seal pups dying due to their disappearing habitat, said the study published in the open access science journal PLoS ONE.

"The kind of mortality we're seeing in eastern Canada is dramatic," said co-author David Johnston, a research scientist at the Duke University Marine Lab.

"Entire year-classes may be disappearing from the population in low ice years -- essentially all of the pups die," he said. "It calls into question the resilience of the population."

For recent data, researchers looked at satellite images of winter ice from 1992 to 2010 in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, a prime breeding region off the east coast of Canada, and compared them to yearly reports of dead seal pup strandings in the region.

They also compared stranding rates to records of a climate phenomenon known as the North Atlantic Oscillation, which controls the intensity and track of westerly winds and storms and exerts a major influence on sea ice formation.

They found that years of weaker NAO and lighter ice cover showed higher death rates among seal pups.

While harp seals have adapted to the earlier spring melts in recent years by developing shorter 12-day nursing periods, it remains unclear if their population can sustain itself against sea ices losses over time.

"As a species, they're well suited to deal with natural short-term shifts in climate, but our research suggests they may not be well adapted to absorb the effects of short-term variability combined with longer-term climate change and other human influences such as hunting and by-catch," Johnston said.

The team also looked back at data from 1950 to 1972 which showed that NAO weather changes were tied to big declines in the seal population, followed by period of recovery from 1973 to 2000.

"But there's a caveat: regardless of NAO conditions, our models show that sea ice cover in all harp seal breeding regions in the North Atlantic have been declining by as much as six percent a decade over the study period," added Johnston.

"The losses in bad years outweigh the gains in good years."

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hsCyhCVoTEZAyNZE73rWRGFpSGNw

Bark beetles, climate change and our future

Recently, a classmate from the University of B.C. asked what I thought about Canada backing out of the Kyoto agreement, and if there was any connection between the insatiable bark beetles infesting the province’s forests and the rising temperatures on Earth.

First, trees are effectively the greatest CO2 warehouses ever created. For every metric ton of wood grown, 1.5 metric tons of CO2 is absorbed and one metric ton of oxygen is released.

Bark beetles like the mountain pine or spruce beetles and lightning-induced fires are nature’s emissaries of change. All forests must undergo a natural process of aging, facilitating regeneration — new life.

In order to fully understand what is happening in British Columbia and throughout the entire western North American continent, it is important to keep in mind that trees, insects and the climate are all inexorably linked; each plays a pivotal role in the feedback loops on nature’s gameboard.



Any change in the behaviour of one or two of these players inevitably changes all of the triumvirate’s interaction along with it. With little opportunity to adapt to new conditions, instability can cause remarkable devastation to entire ecosystems.

That instability has reverberated not only in B.C. and western North America but around the globe on every forested continent as elevated temperatures in the past 40 years of just over 0.5 degrees Celsius on average are killing mature trees by the billions.

In B.C., the mountain pine beetles have killed half the commercial forests in the last 15 years. Instead of absorbing CO2 these massive graveyards of dead trees are releasing 250 million metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere, the equivalent of all the car and light truck emissions in Canada for five years or enough wood to build a city of eight million homes.

It doesn’t even begin to end there; the spruce beetles in the far north of the province into Yukon and Alaska have taken full advantage of warming temperatures by speeding up their life cycles, which formerly took two years and now occurs within one year.

In Kluane National Park and Reserve, Yukon spruce beetles have accomplished something never recorded in modern or past times. Since the cold ecological constraint has been removed, spruce beetles have killed over 350,000 hectares of white spruce. Before this, the largest spruce attack was a modest 247 hectares in 1977.

The long-lived, thrifty high elevation forests of white bark and limber pines of B.C. have also been decimated by mountain pine beetles because, again, the cold-temperature barrier precluding attacks is no longer in situ. Mortality in parts of northern B.C. ranges from 72 per cent to 80 per cent. These forests are crucial habitat for grizzly and black bears, and of paramount importance to retain winter snowfall, slowly release spring melt back into the water cycle and replenish the Pacific Ocean, its salmon, eagles, wolves, bears and orcas.

Death rates of white bark and limber pines across the western United States are as high as 90 per cent. The sentinels of the high country have become the tsunami sirens of global warming, showing ecologist, climatologist and physiologists that a warming world is irrevocably altering the landscape across the entire mountainous region of western North America.

It’s not just the forests that are disappearing but rather immense amounts of ice that reflect incoming solar radiation. One hundred billion metric tons of ice melted from Greenland during the blistering-warm summer of 2010. This year alone 50 per cent of Canada’s millennia-old Arctic ice shelves along the coast of Ellesmere Island vanished.

And far worse, the Southern Ocean which occupies 22 per cent of the total ocean on the globe, absorbing 40 per cent of Earth’s CO2, is acidifying so quickly (as a byproduct of absorbing rising CO2) that by 2030 the sea water will be corrosive to crustaceans, dissolving shells that the animals are making. This amplification will reverberate all the way up the food chain to the whales.

Data from the Global Carbon Project showed the carbon emissions from our planet had increased 5.9 per cent from 2009 to 2010; that’s the largest jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution.

The $17-trillion Alberta oilsands industry must spend carbon energy and precious fresh water to separate the gooey, toxic oil from the sand. Moreover, by burning this petroleum, humans will knowingly raise atmospheric CO2 levels by an astounding 150 parts per million. Earth will be uninhabitable for life as we know it.

If Australia, with its $10-trillion coke-coal industry, can ratify a carbon tax, then surely progressive Canadians can follow their lead.

We are running out of time to combat rising CO2 emissions: Earth’s forests are dying.

It’s time to embrace innovation and the cofounder of the London School of Economics, George Bernard Shaw’s dictum: “Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”

Dr. Reese Halter is a conservation biologistat California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. His latest book is The Insatiable Bark Beetle.

http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Bark%2Bbeetles%2Bclimate%2Bchange%2Bfuture/5920382/story.html

Warning as infectious salmon disease spreads from Europe's fish farms to Canada

Discovery of the deadly salmon virus Infectious Salmon Anaemia in Canada is just latest likely example of disease spreading to wild fish stocks from the world's mega fish farms

The rise of the farmed fish industry in recent years has been accompanied by the emergence of many infectious diseases of fish. One of the most recent and serious diseases is the marine viral disease, Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA).

First detected in Atlantic salmon farmed along the southwest coast of Norway in 1984, it has since spread throughout the world.

As the name suggests, ISA shows itself by a severe anaemia, with fish displaying pale gills, and often swimming close to the surface of the water, gulping for air. More insidiously, however, many fish show no signs at all until they suddenly die.

An outbreak of the ISA was detected in wild Pacific salmon last October, in the Canadian province of British Columbia. Outbreaks of this virus have previously been detected in fish farms in Chile and Scotland, and although not dangerous to human health, have had serious impacts on the industry and the communities who depend upon it.

Read more here ...

Last chance for Sage-grouse in Canada

Call for Canadian Government to protect Sage Grouse

November 2011. An international coalition of environmental groups on Wednesday called on Canada's federal environment minister to take the endangered Greater sage-grouse under his wing with an emergency protection order.

Environmental law group Ecojustice submitted a legal petition today on behalf of 12 groups, including Canadian BirdLife partner Nature Canada, demanding that Environment Minister Peter Kent use a provision in the federal Species at Risk Act (SARA) to protect Canada's few remaining sage-grouse, found only in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

"Without emergency protection for their grassland habitat, sage-grouse are expected to disappear from Alberta within two years and from Saskatchewan within ten years," said Carla Sbert, Nature Canada's manager of conservation programs. "This is still avoidable, but action must be swift."

Just 55 males left in Canada
The iconic bird, known for its elaborate courtship dance, saw almost 90 per cent of its Canadian population die off between 1988 and 2006. As few as 13 male birds currently remain in Alberta and at last count, as few as 42 males were left in Saskatchewan.

The petition calls for Minister Kent to recommend an emergency order to protect the sage-grouse and stop further human disturbance of the habitat these birds need to survive. Recent scientific research suggests that rapid encroachment of oil and gas development on the areas where sage-grouse spend the winter, breed, nest and raise their young is the leading factor in their extreme population drop.

Alberta and Saskatchewan each have a Wildlife Act and voluntary guidelines for energy development near sage-grouse habitat, but provincial protections are so lax that sage-grouse continue to decline. In addition to seeking federal protection for sage-grouse under SARA, the environmental groups are calling on the oil and gas industry to voluntarily provide sage-grouse with the protection they need.

"We have strong science telling us how and where oil and gas development must be regulated if sage-grouse are to survive in Canada, but the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan and the oil and gas industry are refusing to act on it," said Dr. Mark Boyce, sage-grouse expert and professor at the University of Alberta. "Unless they change course immediately, sage-grouse will become the first species extirpated because of the oil and gas industry."

Members of the public are encouraged to send letters of support for immediate, emergency action to prevent the extinction of the Greater sage-grouse in Canada. An online letter can be sent on Nature Canada's web site.

In addition to Nature Canada, signatories to the petition include Alberta Wilderness Association, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, the David Suzuki Foundation, Lethbridge Naturalists Society, Nature Alberta, Nature Saskatchewan, National Audubon Society - Rockies, Sierra Club of Canada - Prairie Chapter, the Society of Grasslands Naturalists, WildEarth Guardians and the Wilderness Committee.

Sage Grouse

Sage grouse are more common in the USA. They are notable for their elaborate courtship rituals. Each spring males congregate in leks and perform a "strutting display". Groups of females observe these displays and select the most attractive males to mate with. The dominate male located in the center of the lek typically copulates with around 80% of the females on the lek. Males perform in leks for several hours in the early morning and evening during the spring months. Lek generally occur in open areas adjacent to dense sagebrush stands, and the same lekking ground may be used by grouse for decades.

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/sage-grouse.html

Was the 'Canadian Loch Ness Monster' Caught on Video?

By Benjamin Radford | LiveScience.com
7 November 2011

A man visiting British Columbia's Lake Okanagan last week claims to have captured video of Ogopogo, Canada's version of the Loch Ness Monster.

According to a report in the Vancouver Sun, "An Okanagan man has video he says proves the Ogopogo may be more than just a figment of our imagination. Richard Huls says he always believed in the possibility of the monster rumored to be living in Okanagan Lake. Last Thursday, while visiting a West Kelowna winery, Huls shot video that he believes proves something does indeed live in the water. 'It was not going with the waves,' Huls said. 'It was not a wave obviously, just a darker color. The size and the fact that they were not parallel with the waves made me think it had to be something else."

Ogopogo, some believe, has its roots in native Canadian Indian legends that told of a beast called N'ha-a-itk that would demand a live sacrifice from travelers for safe passage across Lake Okanagan. Hundreds of years ago, whenever Indians would venture into the lake, they brought chickens or other small animals to kill and drop into the water to assure a protected journey. It's clear, however, that these stories were not referring to a literal lake monster but instead to a legendary water spirit, and are not historical evidence for Ogopogo. [Mythical Creatures That Don't Exist (or Do They?)]

Read more...

http://news.yahoo.com/canadian-loch-ness-monster-caught-video-195018326.html

Petition asks for end to snapping turtle hunt (Via Herp Digest)

Midland Free Press, Orilla, Ontario, 9/30/11 by Gisele Winton Sarvis - Snapping turtles may go the way of the endangered spotted turtle if hunting them remains legal, says local naturalist Bob Bowles.

The snapping turtle has been listed as a species at risk since 2009, but the provincial government has not removed them from the legal hunting list. Snapping turtles can be taken with a daily limit of two and a possession limit of five by anyone with a valid sport or fishing licence.

"Some people spend their whole weekend going out with their bare hands and a knife in their teeth, jumping into ponds, grabbing a turtle and cutting its throat," Bowles said. "This is their weekend entertainment."

Bowles has recently started a petition demanding that turtle hunting be banned. The petition is available at Scales Nature Park, local conservation group offices and MPP Garfield Dunlop's office. The initiative has the backing of environmental heavyweights Ontario Nature and the David Suzuki Foundation.

The petition says "we the undersigned petition... that all hunting of snapping turtles, an Ontario and nationally listed species at risk, be banned under the Ontario Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act." It will be sent to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

Bowles believes that snapping turtles should have been removed from the list of hunt-able species when they were listed as a species at risk, but this has not happened.

The other problem with hunting turtles is that no one is keeping track of the numbers of turtles in a given area or the numbers of turtles hunted, so the impact to turtle populations is unknown.
"They keep track of numbers for moose, deer and wolves," Bowles said.

Even without hunting, turtle and amphibian numbers are diminishing because their wetland habitats continue to disappear with expanding urban development, Bowles said.

And thousands of turtles are killed each year in the province through road kill. Slow-moving turtles often seeking roadside sand banks to lay eggs cannot get out of the way fast enough to survive a fast-moving vehicle.

Some people intentionally run over turtles, said Bryna Belisle, special projects co-ordinator for Scales Nature Park in Orillia.

"A certain per cent of the population are going out of their way to hit turtles," she said, referring to a scientific study done in Long Point that proved this. Long Point has the highest turtle mortality caused by cars in the province.

Of the eight species of turtles that call Ontario home, seven of them are species at risk. Only the Midland painted turtle remains as a self-sustaining healthy population.

"There is still pressure on the species," Bowles said.

"Turtles have been on this planet for 300 million years and now they are having a hard time surviving."

The spotted turtle and the wood turtle are endangered. The softshell, stinkpot and Blanding's turtle are threatened species. The map turtle is listed as special concern.

"My biggest fear is than my grandkids will never see turtles," Bowles said.

It's not too late for the snapping turtle, said Jeff Hathaway, owner of Scales Nature Park in Oro-Medonte. He explained that the higher the population of a given species, the easier it is to rehabilitate. The lower the number of animals left of a species, the harder it is to bring them back.

"The overall numbers are going down, but there is still enough left to turn it around," he said.

What's needed to keep turtles alive and well is positive intervention from humans. The Ontario Multi Turtle Recovery Team is one organization helping turtles by working to maintain or rebuild wetlands, monitor turtle populations and promote awareness to educate people about the plight of these ancient animals.

Narwhal tracking project helps chart species’ future

Canada - WWF is supporting a new project to track narwhals, Arctic whales best known for the long tusk that projects forward from their faces.

The project partners fitted the little-researched whales with satellite tracking devices. WWF is also launching a web page to showcase the partners’ fieldwork and research, with maps and information about the latest movements of the narwhals as they move around Baffin Bay in Canada’s Nunavut territory.

Pete Ewins, Arctic species specialist for WWF-Canada, said that it is expected the project will contribute fascinating information about the habits of narwhals.

“We’re supporting this project because it is a chance to better understand these animals while their world changes around them. We know Narwhals are often associated with sea ice, and we know the sea ice is shrinking. WWF is trying to understand how narwhals, as well as all other ice associated animals in the arctic can adapt to a changing environment. We can put this knowledge together with existing Inuit knowledge, and we can work with Inuit and other stakeholders to help the animals survive the coming changes.”

Read on...

Canada plans massive seal cull

Grey seal cull: Canada plans to cull 140,000 seals to protect fisheries September 2011: The Canadian fisheries ministry are promoting a vast cull of grey seals to protect Canadian fisheries that crashed due to huge overfishing but have not recovered. The ministeries report, despite admitting 'scientific uncertainties' recommends a massive cull of seals to protect valuable fish stocks. Wildlife Extra questions this, purely on the logical basis that if the seals rely on the fish to survive, why are the seals thriving despite the fact that fish stocks are so low?

INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE (IFAW) AND GROUP OF SCIENTISTS SPEAK OUT

The International Fund for Animal Welfare’s Science Advisor, Dr David Lavigne, and five other marine scientists have sent an open letter to Canada’s Minister of Fisheries and Oceans condemning a report by the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council (FRCC) which calls for a massive cull of grey seals in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The open letter was sent to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Honourable Keith Ashfield, on September 26, 2011. In the letter, the scientists describe the Department of Fisheries and Oceans workshop, which informed the FRCC report, as biased and also state that there is no scientific evidence to support a grey seal cull. The scientists recommend that the Minister reject the FRCC recommendation to cull grey seals, and also suggest that a review be done by independent scientists.

Quotes from the Report

Scientific uncertainties

"Scientific uncertainties and societal sensitivities surround the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council killing and discarding of animals solely to reduce their competition with humans for shared natural resources. Seal control programs elsewhere, such as in the Barents Sea, are relatively small. In eastern Canada, we have seal populations at the peak of the exponential phase, so the reductions calculated to be necessary to produce a positive effect on groundfish recovery are very large. In addition, we are subject to intense international scrutiny that has the potential to put established markets for Canadian seafood products at serious risk."

Hypotheis - Seals eat all the fish
"It has been hypothesized since the mid-1990s that predation by seals is the dominant cause of the high rate of natural mortality that has impeded the recovery of many groundfish stocks".

http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/canada-seal-cull.html

Flying bear kills two Canadians in freak accident

Wed Jun 8, 11:11 am ET

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Two Canadians died instantly in a freak accident when a car hit a 440-pound (200-kg) black bear and sent the animal flying straight through the windshield of an oncoming vehicle, local media said Wednesday.

The bear's body hit the 25-year-old driver and a 40-year-old man sitting behind her and then shot out of the back window. The bear also died.

The accident happened Monday night in a rural area about 25 miles north of the federal capital Ottawa.

"We don't see (this) often, even if we live in the country. Lots of deer, but collisions with a bear and two people died? That's really rare," local police spokesman Martin Fournel told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.

Collisions between vehicles and animals are common in Canada, which has a healthy population of large wild animals such as moose and deer.

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; editing by Peter Galloway)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110608/wl_canada_nm/canada_us_bear

Trumpeter swan sighted in eastern P.E.I.

The trumpeter swan was first sighted last Tuesday. (Dwaine Oakley)

CBC News
Posted: May 9, 2011 10:51 AM AT

A trumpeter swan, rarely seen east of the great lakes, has made an appearance in eastern P.E.I.

The bird was first seen by Angela Kelly last Tuesday. She was driving along the Floating Bridge Road when she noticed it swimming with a Canada goose in MacLure's Pond, just west of Murray River.

"The first spotting, I saw his bum and he was with Canada geese and all these birds had their rear ends up in the air and I was thinking, that's odd," said Kelly.

"I thought, well, it must be a farm goose that got loose and just decided to go for a swim. And I thought that for a while and I drove on. I decided to come back that way on Tuesday morning and there he was in his glory just like a fairy tale floating around. And finally other people have spotted him."

Birders speculate the swan could have taken a wrong turn while migrating, or joined a flock of Canada geese during migration.

Biologists recognize three main populations of the swan: on the Pacific Coast, in the Rocky Mountains in the U.S., and around the borders of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

The trumpeter swan is the largest of North America's waterfowl, typically weighing 12 kilograms with wingspans up to three metres.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2011/05/09/pei-trumpeter-swan-584.html

Premier announces Canada's toughest animal cruelty laws

For Immediate Release

April 5, 2011

VANCOUVER - British Columbia is acting on all of the recommendations of the Sled Dog Task Force, including providing new funding for animal cruelty investigations and introducing the toughest animal cruelty laws anywhere in Canada, Premier Christy Clark announced today.

"British Columbians have said clearly that cruel or inhumane treatment of sled dogs or any other animal is simply not acceptable," said Premier Clark. "That's why we are acting on all of the recommendations of the Sled Dog Task Force and sending a strong message that those who engage in that type of behaviour will be punished under tough new laws."

The Province will immediately begin the process to make changes to the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, including increasing penalties to up to $75,000 and 24 months imprisonment for the most serious offences, extending the current six-month limitation period for prosecuting offences, and requiring mandatory reporting of animal abuse by veterinarians. The BC SPCA has also received a $100,000 grant to enhance their capacity for animal cruelty investigations.

The task force, led by Kamloops-North Thompson MLA and Environment Minister Dr. Terry Lake, submitted its report to Agriculture Minister Don McRae after meeting with key industry stakeholders and listening to public feedback. The review included a thorough assessment of the sled dog industry; associated legislative regulatory and enforcement concerns; and standards of care and general welfare requirements of sled dogs.

"I would like to thank the task force members for their dedication to animal welfare in British Columbia," said McRae. "We are acting on the report's recommendations because we take animal protection very seriously in this province."

The report recommended 10 changes to enhance the health, welfare and protection of sled dogs in British Columbia, and strengthen animal protection legislation, including development of a mandatory code of practice for sled dog operators, and improve communication and awareness of animal abuse.

"I can confidently say the recommendations include what I believe, as a veterinarian and animal lover, will help animals be well cared for," said Lake. "Through our work the task force identified the need for the development of best practice guidelines for sled dog operations, and improved animal cruelty laws overall."

"The BC SPCA is grateful to the provincial government for taking such prompt action on this issue," said BC SPCA chief executive officer and task force member Craig Daniell. "We look forward to the swift implementation of recommendations set out by the task force, particularly the development of a mandatory code of practice for the sled dog industry and increased capacity for the BC SPCA to undertake cruelty investigations."

"I want to thank Minister Lake and Minister McRae for the process that has led to this report," said UBCM president Barbara Steele. "The task force findings will enhance animal protection in B.C., and I support the report's recommendations."

A backgrounder is attached listing the recommendations.

The full Sled Dog Task Force report is available at:

http://www.gov.bc.ca/agri/taskforce.html

Big cat sightings on rise in Cape Breton

CBC News
Posted: Mar 15, 2011 3:59 PM AT

The Natural Resources Department is reporting an unusually high number of large cat sightings in central and western Cape Breton.

The department believes most are lynx, though some may be bobcats.

Two weeks ago, Kate Oland was driving near her home in Middle River when she saw a lynx on the snowbank beside the road.

"It was definitely glossy and shiny and healthy looking. Very beautiful, very majestic. I had to slow the car right down and I was able to follow it for quite a ways down the road," Oland said.

"It was such a sunny day and it was against the white snow, with the sunlight filtering through its whiskers and everything, when it turned to look at me. It was just a beautiful, beautiful glimpse. I wished I had a camera."

Oland said the lynx looked at her and then calmly trotted away.

Bruce Murphy, a wildlife technologist with Natural Resources in Whycocomagh, said that in the past month sightings have been reported from Port Hawkesbury to Margaree.

Murphy believes the large cats are looking for food.

He said they likely have left their normal territory because of heavy snow in the Cape Breton Highlands, and the declining population of snowshoe hares, which are a mainstay in their diet.

It's also breeding season, Murphy said, so many of the cats may be searching for a mate

"You don't approach the animal in any way — give them their space and hopefully the animal will return to the wild," he said.

"But, you know, if the animal appears to be injured in any way, emaciated, contact the local DNR office and someone will be there to assist."

Because bobcats are extremely shy of humans, Murphy believes most of the sightings have been of lynx. He said lynx have longer legs, larger paws and ear tufts.

Murphy says the cats are not dangerous but if people don't want them around, they should hide away possible food sources.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/story/2011/03/15/ns-lynx-sightings-cape-breton.html

Polar scare! Children swim inches from monster bears (which would be a worry if you don't notice the glass barrier)

By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 5:27 PM on 8th February 2011

It's a heart-in-the-mouth moment that would have most parents running for help.

The massive carnivores loom menacingly over their bite-size pool companions in these remarkable pictures.

But there's more to the scenario than meets the eye, in fact the children are separated from certain death by 10-inch thick plexiglas.

Within touching distance: Children swim incredibly close to two enormous polar bears at a rescue centre with a difference in Ontario, Canada

Both children and bears are actually very safely taking part in an amazing initiative by the owners of Cochrane Polar Bear Habitat, in Ontario, Canada, in a attempt to promote awareness about the amazing animals.

The sanctuary takes in only bears rescued from the wild and through letting visitors get so close they hope to foster understanding and reduce hunting in the wild.

Former director at the centre and keen photographer Gerry Robichaud took the amazing photographs of the moment bear meets man in the safety of the tank.

He said: 'You do get some very surprised reactions from visitors when they first see the bears and the children in the pool.

'When you're in the water and up by the glass next to these animals it barely seems like there is anything protecting you, when in fact there's a 10-inch think barrier.

'We get various reactions from the children, some of them can't wait to get in the pool and others really don't want to. It's the adults you have to watch out for, some of them jump in still with all their clothes on.

'The two bears in the pictures are actually females, Aurora and Nikita, both who we took in as rescue animals.

'They came to us a cubs after a tribe told us about them because their mother had been shot by a hunter near Winisk, near the Hudson Bay in the far north.'

Gerry, 59, said the aim was to give the bears as much stimulation as possible in their 100m by 200m enclosure.

He said: 'I have been in the water myself when the public have not been here and actually realised one of the bears was stalking me, she was hiding and keeping very low in the water. It was quite an odd feeling.

'I have lived in the far north with the people up there myself and documented their lives, it's a different world up there.'

More: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354786/Children-swim-inches-monster-polar-bears.html

Blood-sucking fish feed on whales

Blood-sucking sea lampreys feed on prey as big as minke whales, according to new research.


Scientists studying whales in Canada have challenged previous theories that lampreys attach to whales purely to "hitch a ride".

Photographs show bloody lesions after lampreys detached from whale hosts, indicating feeding.

Sea lampreys are parasitic fish that feed on others' blood, attaching to the skin with a suction-cup like mouth.

Sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) are known to feed on a wide variety of fish using a funnel-like mouth filled with teeth and a razor-like tongue.


In the past lamprey teeth-marks have been identified on whale and porpoise bodies.

Sea lampreys have also been photographed attached to Pacific humpback and North Atlantic right whales.

Based on these rare glimpses, certain scientists theorised that sea lampreys feed on cetaceans, but it was not possible from this evidence to say conclusively that they were drawing blood.

Others in the scientific community argued that P. marinus could merely be using cetaceans for transport, biting into their flesh in order to travel long distances.

However, during studies in the St Lawrence estuary, where the Great Lakes enter the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, researchers resolved the debate.


The long-term study of minke whales in the area provided the first ongoing observations of sea lamprey and whale interaction.


Their findings were published in the Journal of Fish Biology.

"We and others had long had reason to believe that the lampreys were feeding," said Owen Nichols, Director of the Marine Fisheries Initiative at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, US.

"The high frequency of minke whale observations coupled with their behaviour in the estuary, frequent surfacings with much of their bodies visible, made these observations possible."

Ursula Tscherter was responsible for the fieldwork during which the research team photographed whales before, during and after lamprey attachment.

"Little is known about lamprey fish on cetaceans especially on minke whales," said Ms Tscherter.

"To document the presence of lamprey fish on individually identified minke whales, which use the St Lawrence estuary as a summer feeding ground, helps to put the topic into a broader context."

The images of bloody lesions on the whales provided the first evidence that the parasites fed on cetacean blood.

"To our knowledge these are the first in-situ observations of such behaviour during which one can convincingly state that lampreys attached to whales are rasping through the skin and feeding rather than just 'hanging on for the ride'," explained Mr Nichols.


Sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", P. marinus was accidentally introduced to North America's Great Lakes in the 1800s.

Like salmon, sea lampreys are "anadromous", meaning they are born in fresh water, migrate to the sea for their adult life and eventually return to freshwater to spawn and die.

Efforts are now being made to better understand the species in order to control the invasive population that threatens native fish species.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9281000/9281424.stm

By Ella Davies

Earth News reporter
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4348728589329576621

Blood-sucking fish feed on whales

Blood-sucking sea lampreys feed on prey as big as minke whales, according to new research.


Scientists studying whales in Canada have challenged previous theories that lampreys attach to whales purely to "hitch a ride".

Photographs show bloody lesions after lampreys detached from whale hosts, indicating feeding.

Sea lampreys are parasitic fish that feed on others' blood, attaching to the skin with a suction-cup like mouth.

Sea lampreys (Petromyzon marinus) are known to feed on a wide variety of fish using a funnel-like mouth filled with teeth and a razor-like tongue.


In the past lamprey teeth-marks have been identified on whale and porpoise bodies.

Sea lampreys have also been photographed attached to Pacific humpback and North Atlantic right whales.

Based on these rare glimpses, certain scientists theorised that sea lampreys feed on cetaceans, but it was not possible from this evidence to say conclusively that they were drawing blood.

Others in the scientific community argued that P. marinus could merely be using cetaceans for transport, biting into their flesh in order to travel long distances.

However, during studies in the St Lawrence estuary, where the Great Lakes enter the Atlantic Ocean in eastern Canada, researchers resolved the debate.


The long-term study of minke whales in the area provided the first ongoing observations of sea lamprey and whale interaction.


Their findings were published in the Journal of Fish Biology.

"We and others had long had reason to believe that the lampreys were feeding," said Owen Nichols, Director of the Marine Fisheries Initiative at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies in Massachusetts, US.

"The high frequency of minke whale observations coupled with their behaviour in the estuary, frequent surfacings with much of their bodies visible, made these observations possible."

Ursula Tscherter was responsible for the fieldwork during which the research team photographed whales before, during and after lamprey attachment.

"Little is known about lamprey fish on cetaceans especially on minke whales," said Ms Tscherter.

"To document the presence of lamprey fish on individually identified minke whales, which use the St Lawrence estuary as a summer feeding ground, helps to put the topic into a broader context."

The images of bloody lesions on the whales provided the first evidence that the parasites fed on cetacean blood.

"To our knowledge these are the first in-situ observations of such behaviour during which one can convincingly state that lampreys attached to whales are rasping through the skin and feeding rather than just 'hanging on for the ride'," explained Mr Nichols.


Sometimes dubbed the "vampire fish", P. marinus was accidentally introduced to North America's Great Lakes in the 1800s.

Like salmon, sea lampreys are "anadromous", meaning they are born in fresh water, migrate to the sea for their adult life and eventually return to freshwater to spawn and die.

Efforts are now being made to better understand the species in order to control the invasive population that threatens native fish species.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9281000/9281424.stm

By Ella Davies

Earth News reporter
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=4348728589329576621

Snakes alive! Couple finds second python hiding in their washing machine

STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR

Dan Robson Staff Reporter

When Janet Wilkinson opened her washing machine, she expected to find some laundry. Instead, she found a python.

She shrieked, “Another snake!”

Finding a python living in your home, without your consent, is a lot to handle. But finding more than one? Well, that’s terrifying.

The Royal Python Wilkinson found coiled in her washing machine on Friday night was the second snake she and her husband, Chris Forde, have found in their home in two weeks.

“Lightning only strikes in the same place once,” Wilkinson told the Toronto Star at the couple’s home near Coxwell and Danforth Aves. on Saturday. “But last night it struck again — and it is probably going to strike three or four more times.”

One snake is an anomaly. Two snakes are a family. And a local pet store informed the couple that they’ll likely meet some reptilian siblings in the near future.

The snake saga began about a month ago, when Forde ripped the toilet out the main-floor washroom for some renovations.

“This head just popped out,” he said, of the python peaking through a gap in the floorboards.

Forde, a documentary filmmaker, took a quick video of the trespasser, before it slipped back under the floor. He has documented much of the snake situation on YouTube.

Despite ripping up his basement ceiling and setting traps with dead mice and hot water bottles, the snake didn’t return.

They had lived in the home for two decades, but were planning to sell. But of course, their new tenant hindered their plans.

“It would be unethical,” Forde said, of selling a house with a python living in the walls.

They asked neighbours if they had lost a snake.

No one had.

They even put a sign on their lawn: “Lost your snake? Call us.”

No one did.

Finally, after a month with Wilkinson suffering from snake-filled nightmares, the snake reappeared. The 75-centimetre-long python sat in front of a fridge in the basement. Wilkinson saw it, and screamed. Forde came running.

“This is my time,” he thought to himself, snapping on work gloves.

Docile and resigned, the snake willingly slipped into a pillow case and then into a plastic storage bin.

Naturally, they named him Monty.

Monty went to a local pet store, where an employee promised to take care of him.

The Royal Python hails from West Africa, and is one of the most popular snakes in the pet trade. Tom Mason, a snake expert at the Toronto Zoo, says they are harmless to humans, as long as they are less than four metres long.

They can get into the same cracks and crevices a mouse can. And they can survive for more than a year on a single meal.

Mason says a python can travel “quite a ways” when it escapes from an owner, which apparently happens more than you’d like to know.

“Snakes are escape artists,” Mason said. Asked how many might be slithering, undetected, through Toronto homes, Mason refused to answer.

“I’m not even going to go there.”

Last week a metre-long California king snake slithered out of a sink overflow drain in bathroom of an apartment at 100 Wellesley St. E. The snake, named Marilyn, had escaped from its owner on a different floor. As the time of this article, it has yet to be found.

In 2007, a venomous Egyptian Cobra that was kept illegally by a man in his Church St. home got loose. The incident forced the evacuation of five tenants from an adjoining house. After an intensive five-month search, the snake was believed to be dead, but its remains were never found.

While Wilkinson barely slept Friday night, she was in a much better mood the following afternoon. She actually held the newest python intruder in her hands.

It had been through a lot, after all — apparently surviving a spin-cycle. They named it Montegue, and it will join Monty at Tails pet store in the Beaches.

No one is quite sure how the snakes got in. Regardless, there are pythons in the walls. And more are likely to come.

“There’s three or four in the family,” Wilkinson said. “I’m sure of it.”

Snakes alive! Couple finds second python hiding in their washing machine

STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR

Dan Robson Staff Reporter

When Janet Wilkinson opened her washing machine, she expected to find some laundry. Instead, she found a python.

She shrieked, “Another snake!”

Finding a python living in your home, without your consent, is a lot to handle. But finding more than one? Well, that’s terrifying.

The Royal Python Wilkinson found coiled in her washing machine on Friday night was the second snake she and her husband, Chris Forde, have found in their home in two weeks.

“Lightning only strikes in the same place once,” Wilkinson told the Toronto Star at the couple’s home near Coxwell and Danforth Aves. on Saturday. “But last night it struck again — and it is probably going to strike three or four more times.”

One snake is an anomaly. Two snakes are a family. And a local pet store informed the couple that they’ll likely meet some reptilian siblings in the near future.

The snake saga began about a month ago, when Forde ripped the toilet out the main-floor washroom for some renovations.

“This head just popped out,” he said, of the python peaking through a gap in the floorboards.

Forde, a documentary filmmaker, took a quick video of the trespasser, before it slipped back under the floor. He has documented much of the snake situation on YouTube.

Despite ripping up his basement ceiling and setting traps with dead mice and hot water bottles, the snake didn’t return.

They had lived in the home for two decades, but were planning to sell. But of course, their new tenant hindered their plans.

“It would be unethical,” Forde said, of selling a house with a python living in the walls.

They asked neighbours if they had lost a snake.

No one had.

They even put a sign on their lawn: “Lost your snake? Call us.”

No one did.

Finally, after a month with Wilkinson suffering from snake-filled nightmares, the snake reappeared. The 75-centimetre-long python sat in front of a fridge in the basement. Wilkinson saw it, and screamed. Forde came running.

“This is my time,” he thought to himself, snapping on work gloves.

Docile and resigned, the snake willingly slipped into a pillow case and then into a plastic storage bin.

Naturally, they named him Monty.

Monty went to a local pet store, where an employee promised to take care of him.

The Royal Python hails from West Africa, and is one of the most popular snakes in the pet trade. Tom Mason, a snake expert at the Toronto Zoo, says they are harmless to humans, as long as they are less than four metres long.

They can get into the same cracks and crevices a mouse can. And they can survive for more than a year on a single meal.

Mason says a python can travel “quite a ways” when it escapes from an owner, which apparently happens more than you’d like to know.

“Snakes are escape artists,” Mason said. Asked how many might be slithering, undetected, through Toronto homes, Mason refused to answer.

“I’m not even going to go there.”

Last week a metre-long California king snake slithered out of a sink overflow drain in bathroom of an apartment at 100 Wellesley St. E. The snake, named Marilyn, had escaped from its owner on a different floor. As the time of this article, it has yet to be found.

In 2007, a venomous Egyptian Cobra that was kept illegally by a man in his Church St. home got loose. The incident forced the evacuation of five tenants from an adjoining house. After an intensive five-month search, the snake was believed to be dead, but its remains were never found.

While Wilkinson barely slept Friday night, she was in a much better mood the following afternoon. She actually held the newest python intruder in her hands.

It had been through a lot, after all — apparently surviving a spin-cycle. They named it Montegue, and it will join Monty at Tails pet store in the Beaches.

No one is quite sure how the snakes got in. Regardless, there are pythons in the walls. And more are likely to come.

“There’s three or four in the family,” Wilkinson said. “I’m sure of it.”